Safety Protocol
Do not close distance
Stay where you are, or move gradually toward light and shelter. Do not close in for a better photograph. Every genuinely bad outcome in this archive began with somebody trying to improve their photograph.
Do not crouch
Witnesses fairly consistently report that the subject came closer after they knelt or crouched. We do not know why, and it may be coincidence — people crouch when they are already frightened, and frightened people misremember sequence. We list it anyway because it costs nothing to stay standing.
Bring the animals in
Dogs in particular. Several of our better files start with a dog that would not walk any further down a road.
Do not offer ham
No Council protocol involves feeding anything. Processed pork turns up in enough historical reports that the prohibition is written out specifically rather than left to common sense, because common sense has not held.
Never follow it into a culvert
Absolute. No exceptions, no supervised version, no exemption for qualified members. This covers storm drains, crawlspaces, abandoned foundations, pipes, utility tunnels, and any opening you cannot stand upright inside. See In Memoriam if you want to know why this rule is written in that tone.
Do not imitate the call
Playback and imitation may change the subject's behaviour and will certainly contaminate anything you record afterwards. If you hear a call, record it and keep your mouth shut.
Leave the exit open
Keep clear ground between the subject and its nearest cover. The least coherent witness accounts in the archive all come from situations where somebody had, usually accidentally, cornered something.
Write down what you saw, not what it meant
Time, direction, how long. Weather. What the light was. Whether other animals reacted. Then, separately and clearly marked as such, what you think it was. Investigators can work with a witness who says "I don't know." They cannot unpick a witness who has already decided.
Sensible
Keep your distance and keep the porch light on. Write your notes the same night, before you talk to anybody else about it. Keep the original photograph or recording untouched — send us a copy, not the file you have already cropped. If you find tracks, photograph them next to something of a known size. And if it happens twice at the same address, tell us, because repeat sites are the only thing we have ever learned much from.
Prohibited outright
Pursuit. Trapping of any kind. Feeding. Whistle imitation. Entering a culvert. Baiting a site you are not supervising. Any attempt at physical contact.
A member who does any of these loses field qualification. This has happened four times, three of them to the same person.
Afterwards
Do not go back the next night to see if it works again. Preserve your original media. If objects have been moved or tracks left, photograph them from more than one angle before you touch anything.
Where there were several witnesses, take each account separately before anybody compares notes. Groups converge on a single story within about twenty minutes, and once they have, the individual accounts are gone for good.
Repeat activity at an address you have already reported should go in under the original case number.
Field competency screen
Seven items. Chapters use this before assigning anybody to a supervised watch. It is not a test of whether you believe in anything; it is a test of whether you will do something stupid in the dark.
Field language
Training uses some Council shorthand that will not mean anything to a newcomer, including culvert temptation and ham contamination. Both are defined in the Field Glossary.
Circular 12-C. Last substantive revision March 2024. Reviewed without change, March 2026.